While seeing the usual requests of blatant power creep or wish listing this place is so lovely for, I remembered in a sea of shortsighted untenable asks from the devs 1 absence, one silent topic became so loud I could no longer ignore it.
Yes, Haude. that civ most cant pronounce, some can’t be bothered to try and pronounce, and some insist calling them iro still because rubbing salt in a wound gives them a tiny bit of purpose. The civ everyone insists is actually good but is played less than inca, that civ everyone insists is actually shite. The civ that is really good unless you run into those 5 or 10 civs that everyone plays. Haude. A combination of euro and native that minimizes the fun (euro seige and scaling units, native werid stuff) for units that are somehow not even really…that good anymore.
For those new to haude, lets do a QRD:
-RE haude was extremely strong due to a rush that was quick, beefy units, op skirm/goon, and not everyone got to age4 in 45 pico seconds so light cannons were a real problem
- DE enters, every rush is rightfully killed, everyone else gets some sort of safe FI (mixed reception)
- in return, haude is literally nerfed every other patch. sometimes several in a row. Since RE I believe the only units that have a net, base or easy to obtain buff are rams, mantlets, and some natives. In theory some scaling is higher, but with 0 real eco, weaker plaza, weaker water start late game remains a scary place for haude. I guess treat chads can max sheep but that’s not a 1v1 thing…
- But worst of all, the civ is boring now. alliance cards, unit shipments all basically “normal thing, maybe 1 more dude.” 8 halbs is… a thing. 5 cuir rocks in a vacuum, but compared to most NEW civs TURBO church/shipments is meh. Your explorer is weaker despite a suppoed core feature of playing haude because f you, you killed abus or something so must suffer. Your eco options remain limited. Every game is age2 centric in a game that’s increasingly age3-4 centric. So no one bothers. Hell, if you want age2, play asstec win games and be good plus have tons of gimmicks.
So what to do? Do we make Haude gimmickier? Unfudge the units like prowler and musket rider to actually feel good to play instead of being a explorer babysat unit to be barely better until i ship 5 cards, instantly gg lost if i take 1 bad fight? Make stealth fun and let haude, famous for their ambushes, lean into this? Just nuke otto and watch the playrate double and say mission accomplished?
I have plenty of thoughts but for once ill shut up and listen to the communities ideas. because this dlc and post support is likely the last chance temu France gets to breakout of its DE pidgeonhole and become a good civ to play and feel to play. Not that its likely to change, but devs do prowl (and unlike what they did to stealth in game, we cant detect them) from time to time to popular topics.
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I would argue that Haude age III is alright, but the drop off at Age IV is notable for sure, not to mention team games. So maybe a new acriculture/eco card once you hit industrial to offset their lack of it?
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Give the Mantlets the Deflection ability. It’s oft-suggested and it makes the most sense considering it’s a big-ass shield
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The other day I found myself thinking that Aztec probably needed to get access to some Arsenal-like techs (not exactly a revolutionary idea I know). It might be good to either buff “New Ways” (II) or just give both Lakota and Haude a civ specific set of techs (some unique others just arsenal techs) in their respective buildings that just unlock in age 3. A nice thing with unique versions of the arsenal techs would be that they could also be balanced separately by increasing their cost or unlock age to counterbalance being in a building you have to build anyway.
As for Haude specifically, revert the hero crack-shot nerf. FPs are a bit worse than skirms other than having stealth and the ability to get +2 range, so just normalize their stats. FPs should probably be fine with the same stats as skirms and stealth as a free bonus.
Then probably wait and see.
On the techs for Haude and Lakota I’d consider:
CIR, RCC and heated shot from the regular Arsenal.
Improved Arrow Heads +10% archer attack.
War Drums +10% infantry speed.
Horse Breading (Huade only) changes Kenyas to cost coin.
Raiding Tactics (Lakota only) - removes the firing animation from Bow Riders (III or IV)
[cool name] +15% hand cavalry attack (both lost the Cavalry breastplate because it doesn’t look right).
Paper Cartridge (Huade only because the archer upgrade helps Lakota more).
Scouts +4 LoS on all units and +2 LoS on artillery.
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I’d also argue, that their main problem is terrible lategame eco
Maybe make the 1500 res autogather, like we see with danish now.
And maybe some eco card that references “the three sisters”, that increases gatherrate for mills and estates at the same time?
Idk if it would be good idea to bring back tomahawks dealing melee damage at range? I thought it was cool and unique
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yeah maybe a eco card that gives 20% more gather rate for farms and estates, or maybe even 25% and they would be fine. I think it would be a nerf to tomahawk tbh, as they would lose more to musk and vs skirms you wouldn’t bring them anyway.
I think either make new ways an age IV card and expand it a bit to give specific upgrades (ideally later available) they would logically need for these civs available. the only problem is if you give these civs upgrades like paper cadridge or military drums too early it could be a bit unfair. Hm, or maybe not.
But I dont think that upgrades like “improved Arrow Heads” or “Raiding Tactics” are the way to go
This seems fun and thematic; wed have to tweak the numbers ofc for balance but this seems more interesting
I’ve thought too if the warchief could stealth units around him for a few seconds like 5 or 10. Would be a great way to gotcha people without inherently being uncounterable (stealth moves slow so wary opponent could back off)
Also the alliance cards should be something besides the utter trash imho
Step 1 should be reverting the stupid change where they lost the ability to mine. There’s a zero percent chance of me playing this civ as long as they pull their coin out of an outhouse next to a mine.
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Worse as haude famously traded the great lakes tribes for copper. Maybe let them train miner specific natives a la Norse from AOM if devs insist natives must be “unique”?
No? Aztecs and Mayas can already mine normally. If Haude did too, just give them back that ability. The devs probably only had a consultant for Lakota and thought the change applied to Haude too for some reason.
And Lakota are also not allowed to farm (which the devs didn’t remove from them), which is why Winters (an actual Lakota) suggests replacing the Farm for them with something that spawns buffalo over time.
I’d suggest removing it from Haude since they did mine and change it for Lakota so it doesn’t require (and deplete) regular mines.
One change I’d like for all natives, if the devs really need them to share mechanics (despite supposedly leaving out Moroccans from KotM because the Ethiopian/Hausa mechanics wouldn’t make sense for them), is actual merc/outlaw access. Move the stuff they get from Gun Running to a new building and also add the regular merc pool.
But, but, but they got a Native American consultant who said that it was historically accurate for a copper-using Haud Civ to just pretend they didn’t use it. They also thought a weird building on a gold deposit would also suffice for the Lakota, when they could have done something less abstract and more sensible, like a Buffalo Pound, but that’s another discussion.
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I wouldn’t go that far. Just let them mine normally and maybe have a card to reference the copper mining/trade from the great lakes. A card called Native Copper would be a good double entendre of native copper (copper found naturally in elemental form) and the fact that is was mined by natives. It could do something like send a copper mine and boost the mining rate, or maybe even swap the wood cost of Tomahawks with coin kinda like Aztec Mining.
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That’s because the use of currency is obviously an evil idea that was only introduced due to the corrupting influence of the Europeans. Just don’t pay attention to the fact that copper plates were a symbol of wealth and status in places ranging from Alaska to Florida in pre-Colombian America.
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The consultant they hired for the DE edition was apparently the writer for the new DE Shadows campaign storyline and was the expert the developers relied on for how the native civilizations were portrayed. The Warchiefs expansion did have some input from native representatives btw but let’s ignore that for now.
So, this DE consultant was the one that oversaw and approved of …
- The Haudenosaunee being unable to mine and instead need to use the same tribal marketplace system as the Lakota… because of native values. His reasoning?
“Mining is pretty antithetical to Native values in general. We are taught to respect the land as our mother and be in good relations with it. Mining is a form of exploitation of the land, and we would never treat our mother like that.”
I guess the Aztec and Inca being able to mine is antithetical to these values? Are they disrespecting mother nature or do these values only apply to the Lakota? Various native groups had extracted minerals before. The Haudenosaunee were able to extract from copper mines when they were found by them.
If mining was culturally taboo for the Lakota, why would that restriction apply to the Haudenosaunee? The consultant also apparently was fine and dandy with Lakota being able to farm without restrictions?
He was also fine with the horrible voice acting for the DE Shadow’s storyline and native civs so there that. Like… did he actually listen to Uncle Frank’s voice lines?
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This was my biggest problem with that consultation when I first read it. It actually seemed counter-productive (and veering to un-PC) to lump completely different tribes with completely different cultures together with that reasoning.
I’d also extend this to the four civs being mechanically related to begin with. Even leaving out Incas since they weren’t in TWC, Aztecs aren’t closely related to Hauds OR Lakotas.
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On design philosophy, I kinda wish they could rework Lakota a bit. Changes since DE have pushed them harder towards Infantry, which… isn’t actually accurate nor does it align with why you presumably want to play Lakota.
I actually think the core issue is bow riders needed to remain op, while other units needed to remain suboptimal. Though that creates its own problems…
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The political correctness to rename plantations to ‘estates’ is just insulting. There’s no way native american civs had ‘estates’.
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嗯，对我而言我唯一只觉得很紧迫的是，我作为一个印加玩家经常想要对制作组或者和我一起玩的队友说
问了没啊
作为一个印加玩家感觉自己像一个十足的土著了
